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HOUND ISLAND EXPEDITION. 



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" No person ia permitted within the Territory or jurisdiction of 
'the United States to begin, or to set on foot, or provide or prepare 
'the means for any military expedition or enterprise, to be carried on 
' from thence against the territory of any foreign! Prince or State, or 
'of any Colony, District or people with which the United States are 
'at peace." — [Extract from Laws of the U. S. 



S MOBILE: 

PRINTED AT THE JOB OFFICE OF THE DAILY ADVEKTISER. 

1849. 



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[From the Mobile Daily Advertiser, Sept. 18th, 1849.] 

THE ROUND ISLAND EXPEDITION.-No. 1. 



Several unfair and abusive editorials have appeared of late in the 
New Orleans Delta, touching the conduct of the officers of our Navy 
who are now employed to watch the movements of the band of law- 
less men encamped on Round Island. These articles seem to de- 
mand some notice — not because it is believed by the writer of this, 
that anything which he could say, or indeed which could be written 
by far abler pens, would have the slightest effect in teaching the 
Delta that Truth and Justice are virtues more seemly in a newspaper, 
professing as that does to be the guardian of public morals, than 
their opposites — Falsehood and Slander. 

The public cannot fail to have seen that everything which has 
appeared in the columns of the Delta, in relation to the Round 
Island movement, has been either apologetic or vituperative. True 
to his instincts, when his interests were to be subserved — apologetic, 
when his inherent love o^ detraction was to be indulged — vituperative. 

It is known to all in this vicinity — a knowledge, however, not 
gained through the columns of the Delta — that for more than a month 
past a large body of adventurers, varying from five to six hundred men, 
have been crowded on the small spot of ground called Round Island, 
four miles from Pascagoula ; and although this point is so near to 
New Orleans, yet no one has seen, till within a few days back, that 
the Delta has given the public the slightest inkling of this mysterious 
assemblage 1 an assemblage known to be brought together for pur- 
poses of military organization, preparatory to a hostile invasion of 
States at peace and amity with our own. Is there a newspaper in 
either New Orleans or Mobile, who will deny this ? Will the Delta 
have the mendacity and hardihood to deny it? He cannot deny it. 
But it is so notorious that the Delta has studiously concealed from 
the country at large the lawless enterprise which for six weeks has 
been fitting out in our waters, and that he would have connived at 
the departure of some eight hundred desperadoes of all nations, pre- 
tending, however, to call themselves Americans (!), to make war. 



for tire sake of plunder, upon a people with whom we have no cause 
'of quarrel. 

I will not pay so poor a compliment to the good sense and intelli- 
gence of my countrytaen as to enter into details to prove that an un- 
law&l military enterprise has been brewing in this vicinity, certainly 
for as many as six weeks, to revolutionize the provinces of friendly 
powers, and that Round Island is the nucleus of the Southwestern 
■portion of the expedition. 

The Delta knows this — has certain information of the fact ; and 
j'et that paper has the assurance to talk about the navy molesting 
-citizens who are spending the summer for recreation on islands near 
the lake shore ! 

Has the Delta been furnished witfi no tidings of the doings of late 
on Round Island? Has he heard nothing o^ brawls which occasion- 
-ally occur among these lawless men? Of the stahhings which have 
taken place there within a few days past? of the terror of the people 
on the main lest these peaceable men should land among them? of 
the unwillingness to act on tbe part of "courts, magisti^tes, mar- 
shals, constables, posse comitali" ? and how in one instance the civil 
authorities of the " sovereignty of Mississippi" were (^e^ecZ when they 
attempted to eaforce the law ? Has he lieard of no murder on Round 
Island? and that when the perpetrator of the murder was sent on 
shore at Paseagoula, in a boat from the squadron, does he not know 
that the civil authorities would have noliiing to do with him — that no 
one would stand forward to enforce the law in the "sovereign State 
of Mississippi"? The Delta knows all this ; he knows, too, that 
another man is considered in a dangerous state from the effects ■©$ 
wounds received in a brawl ! Still, in the face of all this, the Delta 
says that the "State of Mississippi is amply able to protect its laws and 
<3eal with wrong-doers." This assertion is untrue. The Delta 
knows better, and meant it for efect. He knows that no sheriff with 
any posse which he could muster among the sparse population of tisis 
portion of the State would dare to levy a process upon the lawless 
band assembled on Round Island. Any "ffteen shilling Virginia 
lawyer" might know this — he of the Delta knows it. 

B-at why has the Delta, until recently, been so silent about this 
Round Island movement ? Why has this sentinel who claims to 
occi;^y the highest watchtower in guarding the public moi'als — why 
Is it that he is found slumbering at his post ? I repeat — why this 
£ig,niftcani -silence, friend Delta? Echo answers why 1 



Had the Editor of the Delta been content, '■'■for a consideration,^^ 
to remain silent in the midst of the preparations which he knows to 
be in progress to bring disgrace upon our country, I should have 
thought meanly enough of him ; but when he wantonly traduces our 
naval officers for faithfully trying to prevent what some have been 
paid to forward, I feel that no epithet, however harsh when applied 
to him, would be unmerited. 

TRUTH. 

P. S. — Seeing that this "jurisconsult" of the Delta may have 
become somewhat rusty in the law since his translation from "the 
bar" to the "chair editorial," I hope he will excuse me for giving 
himtheiegal definitions of the epithet "vagrants," an epithet which, 
when applied to his friends on Round Island, Ave have seen has 
excited his most awful ire — to say nothing of his many clumsy at- 
tempts at wit : 

"Vagrants. — The law includes three classes of persons under 
the denomination of vagrants, viz: idle and disorderly persons, 
rogues and vagabonds, and incorrigible rogues." 

Will any one say — will even the Delta say, that the assemblage 
on Round Island does not legally and properly come under the head 
of the first class of vagrants named above ? 

[From the Mobile Daily Advertiser, Sept. 19th, 1849.] 

THE ROUND ISLAND EXPEDITION.— No. 2. 



The officer commanding the Naval forces off Round Island has 
been unjustly assailed by certain newspapers of New Orleans and 
other places, for attempting to defeat the military expedition known 
to be fitting out in our waters, to invade and make war upon a nation 
at peace and amity with our own. Language most scurrilous and 
denunciatory has been applied to that officer, because he has faith- 
fully employed the force under his command in preventing the de- 
parture of the lawless band from Round Island, upon an expedition 
which would have been in violation of our treaty obligations of neu- 
trality. The most exaggerated statements have gone forth from cer- 
tain journals in N«w Orleans, to induce the public to believe that 



6 

the navy has wantonly and audaciousl}' interfered with the private 
rights of our citizens, and trampled upon the laws of a sovereign 
State of this Union. One newspaper has been mendacious enough 
to ascribe the murder or murders on Round Island to the embargo 
laid upon provisions intended for their consumption, when the Editor 
well knew, at the time of making the charge, that not a single pound 
of provisions had ever been turned away from the island ! It is true 
that in the "summons" issued by Commander Randolph to the people 
on Round Island, an embargo an provisions was threatened, but it is 
ztot true that the threat was ever enforced. 

Before the summons was enforced, that officer was induced to 
doubt the legality and propriety of cutting off supplies intended for 
the Round Island band, and he at once forbid its enforcement, and, 
more than that, hearing that their commissariat had either been de- 
linquent, or was unable to provide food for the band, and that they 
were starving. Commander Randolph immediately ordered two days' 
jneat and bread to be sent to them from the schooner Flirt — which 
was accordingly done. 

All this was known to the New Orleans Delta, for according to 
his own admission he keeps a reporter constantly on Round Island. 
But, to return to the expedition. The really discreet and respectable 
portion of our citizens — the men of cool heads and sound principles, 
cannot surely blame the navy for the part which it has taken in en- 
deavorlng to break up and disperse the Round Island rabble. These 
people should never be allowed to leave our waters upon their law- 
less, bucaneer expedition. They are ready to go anywhere, and do 
almost anything. Their officers have not a spark of chivalry among 
them; two-thirds of their rank and file are not Americans — many 
of them pauper foreigners — and not a few of them, it is believed, are 
reckless desperadoes who could be hired to do anything. 

How preposterous to compare such a band with the lieroes who 
assisted us in achieving our independence ! And yet this compari- 
son has been made by a New Orleans Editor. 

All good men would be glad to know that Cuba had emancipated 
herself from Spanish tyranny and oppression, but who would not 
blush to contribute in bringing about so desirable an end even, in the 
manner indicated by the New Orleans Delta ? To permit a military 
expedition to leave our waters, and especially one composed of such 
materials as the Round Island adventurers, would be an indelible 



stigtna upon our country's escutcheon. What patriot would be wil- 
ling to have his country represented by such an assemblage ? Who 
but interested editors of newspapers would have the effrontery to say 
that the Round Islanders are not a band o^^^ vagrants?" In the opin- 
ion of all reflecting persons it would be "a burning, an eternal 
shame," (to quote the Delta's words) to allow an expedition so o-otten 
up, and composed of such materials, to leave pur coast. It would 
be an enterprize for purposes of rapine and plunder. Who doubts 
this? Will the unscrupulous Delta pretend that his Round Island 
friends could not be hired to march into Yucatan to assist the In- 
dians in massacring the Spanish population — although some of this 
very band on Round Island, with their Colonel at their head, were 
once hired to butcher the poor oppressed and enslaved Indians, and 
did butcher them in a manner too merciless and horrible to relate? 

Shame upon such Hessian expeditions ! and worse shame upon 
the hired persons who countenance and uphold them ! The bucaneer 
exploits of Anson and Drake were chivalric compared with what is 
now in agitation. 

The navy, doubtless, was sent to Round Island to defeat the expe- 
dition by a recourse to all lawful and proper means. It is idle to say 
that the "sovereign State of Mississippi," with her sparse seaboard 
population, "is abundantly able to enforce her own laws." Before 
acting at all in the matter, the Commander of the naval squadron 
mingled with the inhabitants of Pascagoula and conversed with them 
freely about affairs on Round Island, and they all united in declaring 
that they were a lawless assemblage — that they had resisted the civil 
authorities in one instance — and that the civil officers were afraid to 
complain of them? And what greater confirmation could be given 
of the truth of these statements than what occurred two days after- 
wards? A man was killed in a brawl on Round Island — was buried 
without an inquest, and another was dangerously wounded by the 
same individual. The slayer was instantly seized by an officer of the 
navy, taken to Pascagoula to be delivered up to the civil magistrates, 
hut no one would act, and the murderer was allowed in open day to 
take the mail steamer to the city of New-Orfeans ! 

What becomes now of the Delta's grandiloquence ? evidently in- 
tended for a powerful appeal to the sovereign State of Mississippi to 
avenge herself, seeing that her soil has been desecrated, her laws 
trampled under foot, and her citizens molested in their honest callings ! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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What noxt may wc expect from this Proteus of the Delta? Suc- 
cessively newspaper critic, wit, ^^juri.srtm.wlt," mouthing patriot, 
champion of State rights, vagrants^ rights, and all sorts of rights — 
and who, lastly, absolutely overwhelms us with rhetorical flourishes 
and Diirlc.ian a[)OstrophcR. 

" Ve (^ods! Tipon what meal tlotli this our Ciesar feed, 

Thai he is provvn so greal !" 

TRUTIL 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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